|
The Recovery of Orthodox Churches in the Second Polish Republic was an action led by successive governments of the Polish state from 1919 to 1939. There were several phases of the action from 1919 to 1924, 1929 to 1934, and 1937 to 1938. The restitution action formed part of the general policy of the Second Republic against the Polish Orthodox Church, which aimed to minimize the social and political influence of the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian national minorities. An important motive was also a strong hostility to the Orthodox Church, a religion which was seen as a representative of the partitioning powers on Polish soil. Action was initially through spontaneous takeovers of churches by Catholics and in later stages by pre-prepared government plans. Orthodox churches were torn down, closed, adapted to become Roman Catholic churches (as many were originally) or public buildings. According to surviving documents from 1937 to 1938 the goal was total Polonization of areas west of the Bug River (traditionally seen as the border between Catholic and Orthodox Poland) and to maximise Polish cultural influences east of it. These plans were not implemented because of the outbreak of World War II and because of the attitude of the Orthodox Church. == Legal status of the Orthodox Church == On December 16, 1918, the head of state issued a decree in which all assets of the Orthodox Church in Poland were put under the administration of the state. Formally, this step was justified by the need to protect the assets of churches abandoned after World War I, during the "Bieżeństwo" (the mass exodus of the Orthodox populations from western areas of the then Russian Empire in the face of approaching German troops). The decree did not lose validity even when the population and Orthodox clergy returned to the occupied territories after the war, and after the March constitution guaranteed freedom of religion. Consent to re-open churches and their use for the purpose of worship was issued by the state administration and could not be granted without detailed justification. In 1919, the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education (Ministerstwo Wyznań Religijnych i Oświecenia Publicznego - MWRiOP) ordered seals attached to inactive Orthodox churches, declaring they would take a more comprehensive decision on the Orthodox churches at a later time. In practice, this led to their permanent closures. A July 9, 1919 decree extended this to lands joined to Poland after the Treaty of Riga. A second decree, the Regulation Commissioner General Directorate of Civil Eastern Territories of October 22, 1919 (rozporządzenie Komisarza Generalnego Zarządu Cywilnego Ziem Wschodnich), known as the "lex Żeligowski", only related to areas east of the Bug River. It commanded the return of all church buildings to be operated by the Roman Catholic Church, however it did not address the issue of churches belonging to the Eastern Catholic Churches. Some problems relating to the nationality of the church buildings that had been taken also developed in 1922's temporary regulations on the relationship of government to the Orthodox Church in Poland, which mainly dealt with issues of liturgical language, meeting organisation, conventions, diocesan councils, territorial division of the diocese, education, clergy and Orthodox co-fraternities. After the publication of the temporary regulations, the Orthodox Church was also required to present a complete inventory of existing churches and monasteries, as well as a list of the clergy and the estimated number of its faithful. It was only from 1938 to 1939 when statutory solutions to ownership of sacred objects were enacted. In addition to resuming the language issue (it was forbidden to issue religious statements in a language other than Polish), regulation of issues related to the training of religious personnel and the requirement for prayers for the Polish state, the document partially raised the issue of property with more detailed solutions for the next draft law. It set limits on religious land ownership which was relevant as the Orthodox Church still owned 52,200 hectares of land (down from 146,000 hectares in 1918). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Recovery of Orthodox Churches in the Second Polish Republic」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|